Nate Dame says, “There are at least 200 ranking factors in Google’s algorithm (not to mention RankBrain), which means a thorough SEO audit could lead to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of SEO tasks. Few companies have the budget or resources to complete every potential SEO to-do item — and doing so would be an incredible waste of time and resources anyway. Some SEO tasks are critical and cannot be ignored; others just aren’t worth your time. Prioritizing an SEO task list is crucial. Focus your resources on SEO work that is actually going to improve rankings, increase clicks and... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “Keyword ranking is one of the most overrated and misused metrics in SEO. Yes, tracking your positions is important, but placing too much emphasis on this metric is problematic. When it comes to SEO, what you measure gets managed. That means that focusing on the right metrics will help you generate results that have a business impact, rather than an ego boost. So, let’s talk about the problem with obsessing over rank — and what metrics you’d be better off focusing on. The problem with rank tracking Measuring keyword ranking is easy to get sucked into because... [...]

Kevin Lee says, “One age-old question that often comes up when I chat with new prospects or new clients is, “Should I bid on my brand terms or generic terms where I rank in the top three organically?” This question is hardly trivial. It matters a great deal because PPC search budgets are generally constrained — and now, with other enticing options available from Facebook and other programmatic channels, we need to demonstrate that our search advertising budgets are being allocated optimally. Six key questions to ask before you begin The best way to answer this question is by using... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “Why are we so afraid of links? Back in the old days of SEO, we loved any link if it was free, even if it was from a spammy scraper site or the lowest-quality directory you’ve ever seen. If we did nothing to get that link, it was a great link. People assumed that all links were beneficial — and that even “bad” links were completely harmless, with no potential to cause damage. Then we started to get scared… and we nofollowed links. We performed loads of link analysis and reached out to sites that we thought were spammy and asked to have our links removed. Oh,... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “Any SEO worth their sustainably harvested pink Himalayan salt knows that Google offers a variety of advanced search operators – special commands that take you above and beyond regular text searches. Learning search operators is a bit like learning chess, though. It’s easy to memorize how each piece moves, but that’s about 1% of your path toward mastery. I know that the pointy-hat guy in chess moves diagonally, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to take on Kasparov or Deep Blue. Instead of just listing all of the operators and telling you what... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, wrote a blog post explaining how SEOs and webmasters can handle site outages or closures that last for a day or longer. This is when a webmaster intentionally takes down the site for maintenance, site moves, religious reasons or other reasons. John offers three options: Block the cart functionality from Google and your users. Always show an interstitial or pop-up saying your site is offline today. Switch the whole website off for a period of time. Each option can be handled differently, but the easiest option seems... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “In a rare move, Google confirmed that a publisher named Natural News was penalized and deindexed by the major search engine over Google webmaster guidelines violations. In fact, Google’s John Mueller specifically said the site was using sneaky mobile redirect, and once that is “cleaned up, the site can submit a reconsideration request through Search Console.” It seems like they did clean it up and submitted a reconsideration request through Search Console, because the site is now back in the Google index. A site command now returns the home page and 440,000 other... [...]

Wesley Young says, “New businesses need all the help they can get to attract customers, generate revenue and establish themselves to compete with existing companies. And for brick-and-mortar storefronts, being found on Google Maps is key to driving traffic to the business. Due to the economic explosion in the Plano and Frisco suburbs of Dallas, opening of new local stores is rampant. New commercial developments are being built and filled with shops within a matter of months. This growth also provides the ability to make some interesting Google Map search observations, as comparisons can be... [...]

Kerry Jones says, “Do your link building results look something like this? – Start doing outreach – Get links – Stop doing outreach – No more links Everyone talks about the long-term benefits of using content marketing as part of a link building strategy. But without the right type of content, your experience may be that you stop earning links as soon as you stop doing outreach. In this sense, you have to keep putting gas in the car for it to keep running (marketing “gas” = time, effort, and resources). But what if there was a way to fill up the car once, and that... [...]

Greg Gifford says, “It’s the end of the month, and that means it’s time for another edition of Greg’s Soapbox! Except this time, it’s not so much me standing on the soapbox and ranting; I’m more standing near it and politely providing helpful advice. Almost two years ago, I wrote a post here about using Google phone support if you had issues with Google My Business (yes, I’m not linking to the post on purpose). Depending on your particular keyword phrase when you search, that post usually ranks anywhere from #2 to #5 for any variation of “Google My Business support” — and... [...]